Socks To Make Me Happy

I love socks--fun, funky, colorful socks. While I have always worn socks, when I was growing up they were often plain white or black or blue. I just don't think there were that many to choose from back them. My love affair with socks began in earnest during the years that Lindsey and I volunteered at the Salem Art Fair and Festival . . . it was Lindsey's idea that we wear "art fair socks." And by that she meant wacky, zany socks that had at least one of the colors featured on that year's art fair t-shirt. Sometimes they were striped, or had flowers or some strange pattern, but they were always eye-catching. And fun. It always lifted my spirits to wear them and for the rest of the 361 days of the year that we were not involved in art fair activities, I would get dressed each morning and pull out my colorful socks with a smile on my face.

Our days of volunteering at the art fair are over (at least for now), and yet I still find myself drawn to crazy socks. When I am doing massage, I often wear black (for some reason, it's the unspoken professional attire among LMTs, scrubs notwithstanding) and my favorite thing to do is pair a black top with black pants and then add my socks of many colors. I am professional, yet fun. :)

I recently had to throw out my favorite pair of socks (the hippie-type ones with big flowers on them) because of the huge holes that developed in the heels--that was one of the only times I can think of when I wished my grandma had taught me to darn socks. I wanted to replace them, but hadn't yet found the "right" pair. Then my birthday rolled around and I got some money tucked inside a birthday card from one of my grandmas. Then I happened to be shopping with my mom at a hospital gift shop and found the perfect pair of socks. They were pricey, but hey, they were to be a birthday present . . . thanks, Grandma!

The socks come in a package of three (in case the dryer eats one) and are intentionally mismatched. That's right, they are not mirror images of each other, like "regular" socks. There are 4 types of these "Little MissMatched" socks that you can buy, depending on just how zany you want to get. The ones I liked are the "Marvelous" brand." This means that the colors of the socks are next to each other on the color wheel . . . slightly zany, but not absolutely kooky. "Fabulous" socks boast different shades of the same color while "Kooky" socks have colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel. Finally, "Zany" socks have every color on the color wheel--for the truly adventurous. :)

Here's the website, if you'd like to check them out for yourself: www.littlemissmatched.com

And next time you're feeling blue, rummage through your sock drawer and pull on a pair of good times with some "fun" socks. You'll feel better . . . I promise.

Our Weekend in The Dalles: Old Cars, Good Food and Family

Michael and I had a very busy three-day weekend in The Dalles that started last Friday and ended late Sunday night. The annual Hoffman Family Reunion was planned for the second Sunday in August, so we knew we'd be heading to The Dalles to attend--especially since we didn't go last year. Michael's parents invited us to come up early so that we could go to "Neon Nights," which is a parade of old cars and trucks, all in various stages of restoration, up and down the main streets of downtown The Dalles. The four of us had a front row seat for the festivities: we grabbed dinner at the new Taco Del Mar and sat at a table outside, munching burritos and watching the cars roll by. Michael's favorite car at the cruise-in was a 1969 Dodge Charger (made popular by a couple of rowdy cousins from Hazzard County). The one he liked most at the regular car show the next day was a Chevy Nova . . . he doesn't know what year it is, and doesn't care for the robin's egg blue color, but hey, if someone offered it to him, I don't think he'd say no. His dad (Ted) had an eye for a 1957 Thunderbird and a 1955 Ford hardtop . . . a huge car that was like one he owned as a kid. I fell in love with an old (40-something) Chevy that had beautiful curves and a striking silvery-gray paint job. The turquoise Volkswagen bug was also very nice. :) Michael doesn't think his mom had a favorite in the cruise-in, but she did own a 1965 Mustang Coupe back in the day. We watched the cars rumble down the street, revving their engines and peeling out for the spectators. Not a bad way to spend a Friday night . . .

The next day Michael and his dad worked on fixing the roof of a chicken coop for a customer while his mom and I checked out the little farmer's market in the city park. When I lived in The Dalles in the late '80's and early '90's, if you wanted to go to a farmer's market, your only option was Gresham. I'm happy to report that my little hometown has come into the modern era and now you can find fresh vegetables, fruits and flowers at the market every Saturday until 1pm. Donna (Michael's mom) even bought us a pint of some pure, raw snowberry honey from a farm in nearby Mosier.

We also visited the labyrinth up at Mid-Columbia Medical Center. I have wanted to walk a labyrinth for several months now but just haven't made it to any of the ones in the Portland area. My mom told me about the one at the hospital in The Dalles--apparently it has been there for a number of years. Mom said she should have gone and checked it out back when she was still working there. I told Donna that I really wanted to drive up and "walk it"and she went with me, not really knowing what it was all about. I was amazed at the beauty of the design and of the craftsmanship of the labyrinth. It looked like two kinds of granite was used. There was a stone marker near the entrance to the labyrinth that explained that it was a replica of the one at Chartres Cathedral in France. During the Middle Ages it was used by people who could not afford a pilgrimage to the Holy Land--in this way, they could still make the journey. The sign at the labyrinth in The Dalles invited people to enter with a clear mind. For me, walking the labyrinth is a powerful reminder of the journey that is my life. Just when I think I am reaching a "goal" or a milestone, my life changes and I keep walking--and learning. C'est la vie. :)

Michael's sister, Christy and her daughter, Jessica joined us Saturday night. Jessica loved watching Charlie (of course we brought him with us!!) and talking to him. By the time we went home on Sunday, she had already asked her mom if they could get a bird too. I found out that Jessica really likes looking at pictures. We looked at all of the ones on display in the living room and then Donna got out baby albums and we had fun looking at pictures of Jessica and her brother Ryan and remembering when they were both so much smaller.

Sunday morning was a bit hectic as Donna, Christy and I each prepared salads to take to the reunion. We were busy chopping and mixing and swapping out bowls. At one point I joked that it felt like we were in a cook-off! The guys had gone ahead to Sorosis Park to scope out some picnic tables and greet the first arrivals for the reunion.

It was a smaller gathering than it has been in the past, but it was fun nonetheless. The kids (both big and small) played horseshoes and everyone caught up on everyone else's lives and goings-on. Pictures were taken and hugs were given. Oh and food was eaten! There was such a smorgasbord of food--pasta and vegetable salads, baked bean casserole, sub sandwiches, the obligatory buckets of KFC, coleslaw, and desserts. Many people were chuckling over one of the cakes because the recipe called for a can of pork and beans. I didn't try the cake in question (I could not keep my hands off of Donna's zucchini bundt cake with cream cheese frosting!), but I thought it was an interesting notion. My other thought was just how bored does one have to be before experimenting with pork and beans in a cake recipe? :) Those crazy Hoffmans!

At the end of the day, Michael and I loaded Charlie's cage in the car and headed off into the sunset. We talked all the way home: about the people we'd seen, about the food we'd eaten and about our lives together. We'll see you next year, same time, same place, second Sunday in August.

Michael's cousin, Melissa, his sister, Christy, Michael and his cousin Tim at Sorosis Park.

Lemon Blueberry Buckle

Some of you know that I am a beginning cook. I'm here to tell you now that I am even more of a beginning baker. The beautiful KitchenAid mixer that my parents got me for Christmas (3 years ago?), has only recently begun to see some use--likewise the Silpat that my friend Lindsey persuaded me to buy at a cooking gadget party. She said it would be great for making cookies and that I could use it for baking many other things as well. My expertise thus far has been limited to the occasional batch of cookies or cupcakes and every so often a cake from a mix. One of the good things about having so much time on my hands is that I have time to try baking . . . and not from a mix. No my friends, baking from scratch, the real deal. If you read one of my previous posts, you saw a batch of the blueberry scones I made a few weeks ago. Spurred on by that success and by having an excess of blueberries from the day I went picking with my friend Amy, I decided to try something infinitely harder (or at least the recipe seemed much more complicated than the scone recipe): a lemon blueberry buckle.

The recipe came from a book (Rustic Fruit Desserts) that my mom saw advertised at a New Seasons store near my house. She asked me to get a copy for her and when I went to pick it up, I couldn't help but thumb through its heavenly pages, drooling. When I saw the recipe for the lemon blueberry buckle, I knew I had to try it. It was broken down into 3 separate sections: a recipe for making the crumble topping, a recipe for the cake itself, and a recipe for making the glaze . . . this last only required 2 ingredients, but it said that the finished product needed to pour like a syrup and that made me nervous. It sounded temperamental, this glaze.

The next time Michael and I went to the grocery store, I picked up the few ingredients I needed: a couple of lemons, some nutmeg, buttermilk and more sugar. I was ready to make the buckle; the problem was that we were in the middle of a heat wave and (being as the only air conditioning in our house is in our bedroom) there was no way I wanted to turn my oven to the required 350 degrees. I decided to wait a couple of days until my parents came over to drop off Charlie at our house before leaving on their vacation. I reasoned that the temperature might be a little cooler by then, and there would be the added bonus of showing off (I mean sharing) my masterpiece with my parents. :)

The day of the great buckle-making adventure arrived. I lined up all of the ingredients I would need on the counter, tied an apron around my waist and set to work. I remembered a friend telling me once, a long time ago, that the secret to baking was simply to "clean as you go." Okay, I thought, I'll do it, and I'll have a spotless kitchen by the time I'm through baking this wonderful dessert. I was definitely feeling my inner Martha Stewart. :) Long story short, the kitchen didn't exactly look clean by the time I was finished, several sweaty hours later--alas, the heat wave was not quite over. The buckle was in the oven, but the pan wasn't the right size and every time I checked to see if it was finished, the center still wasn't cooked through. Not to mention, the lemon glaze I was stirring refused to thicken to the consistency of syrup. The two events needed to be timed perfectly, because the syrup was supposed to be poured over the cake as soon as it came out of the oven. Eventually, my glaze took on the aroma of charred lemon, and I was pretty sure that last bit of the instructions, the glaze coup de grace was not going to happen.

The good news is that the finished product did look pretty darn good--and it tasted even better! We all got to sample it and marvel at the crunchy topping combined with the soft, crumbly cake, blueberries bursting in every mouthful. As I enjoyed it, the only sad thought I had was just how little time it was going to take to eat this lovely buckle, compared to the amount of work that had gone into it. I felt almost exactly like one of those cliched 50's housewives wiping a flour-dusted hand across a sweaty brow . . . "I slaved all day to make this dessert and now I still have all of these dishes to do." *sigh*

Next time, this 21st century housewife is going to enlist the help of anyone else in her household who might want to eat whatever mouth-watering dessert is on the menu--if not as sous chef, then at least as official dishwasher extraordinaire. :)

Lunch with Friends

Yesterday Michael and I met with an old friend from high school and his family and they took us out to lunch. When I was growing up in The Dalles, Terry lived right across the street from me. I think we first met in eighth grade when I began attending The Dalles Junior High--we were both in band! :) Terry said that he and Michael met in junior high too, but I don't remember that since I didn't officially meet Michael until our senior year of high school when we had a personal finance class together.

It had been a long time since we had all seen each other. Terry and his wife, Su Jin and their son Jaden (who is almost 10 now!) have lived in Albany for many years, and I don't get down that way as much as I would like. One of the last times we had seen each other was before Michael and I were married and we lived in our old apartment in Beaverton. I think Jaden was only 4 or 5 then! We had so much fun reminiscing yesterday and spending time together, that we all agreed we should make a point of trying extra hard to fit in a get-together with each other at least once a month--even if it is only meeting them in Tigard when they come up to shop at a specialty grocery store.

Once again, I was reminded of what a blessing it is to have good friends, and of how one's friends and family are the most important things in life.

A Bird in the House: Lucky Chucky

My parents are off on their 2-week road trip to Minnesota. They packed their car and trailer, loaded up their dog and headed out this morning. Since my mom is in her fifties and my dad is in his sixties and this is their first-ever trip of this nature, I am very proud of them.

Since I was about 7, our family has had animals. Over the years, my parents have owned 2 cats, 4 dogs and a bird. Wherever they go, their animals accompany them--even on camping trips. And the trailers my parents have owned have always been pretty small affairs, intended mostly for sleeping. On one memorable occasion about 6 years ago, chaos erupted in their tiny camper. The three of us humans were in there, both dogs were barking, the bird was squawking and I couldn't stop laughing at the comedy of the situation. Yes, my parents take their bird camping with them; he also rides in the car with a seat belt strapped around his cage, and he sleeps in their bedroom. Talk about a lucky bird. :)

Anyway, for this particular trip, my parents thought it might be better to leave Charlie with a sitter. I think they thought things might be just a little too crowded if they brought the bird, his cage and all his paraphernalia on their road trip adventure across America--with their dog, Sadie riding next to him and trying to eat him through his cage. So Michael and I volunteered to take him . . . keeping in mind the fact that Charlie would be sharing our house with Chloe, my "almost" 10-year-old cat.

Mom and Dad brought him over yesterday, along with both of his cages (he has a large "condo" cage on wheels and a smaller one that would be better for taking him upstairs with us, should we choose to put him in our bedroom at night. He was pretty quiet last night, being that he was probably in a little bit of a culture shock from being in a new environment. Besides that, he gets really quiet when it's dark--I think because he can't see where potential predators might be and he doesn't want to give away his position.

My mom and I were sitting downstairs last night after they had brought him over, and I was interested to see what Chloe would think of Charlie. I coaxed her downstairs (she is very shy when people come to our house and always runs upstairs to hide in my book room) and was surprised that she didn't seem to notice him. She definitely heard him tweeting, because she looked around for the source of the sound, but I don't think she connected it to the cage. And I am almost positive she didn't see him in there.

We tried to get Charlie to go into his smaller cage last night so we could take him to bed with us, but he would have none of it. So I double and then triple-checked the doors on his cage, to make sure he couldn't get them open and fly out onto the floor where Chloe would surely find him. I even turned his cage around so the door that has the loosest latch faced the wall--just in case he managed to get it open. It would be bad enough if Chloe got to him, but to have to tell my parents that their beloved (and I do mean beloved) bird was eaten by my cat on his first night at our house would have been unthinkable. So I made sure he was locked up tight and then went to bed. Chloe still didn't seem to realize he was there, although she did sniff at the legs of his cage a little and sniffed the air like she smelled "bird" (or some other tantalizing scent) but couldn't tell where it was coming from.

This morning when I opened the bedroom door, Chloe was lying there, waiting for me. I was glad to see that she hadn't brought me a "present" in the middle of the night and that Charlie must still be safe in his cage. Chloe followed me downstairs for her breakfast and when I took the towels off of Charlie's cage, he began to greet me with some fairly loud squawks. This time, Chloe took notice. She sat down in front of his cage, her gaze riveted to his figure on its perch. I don't think I've ever seen that kind of concentration from her. He got very quiet and turned his head so that one beady eye looked right at her. Her attention was glued to him for about 10 minutes and then she sauntered off. He looked a little shaken, and I talked to him soothingly, telling him not to worry, that I would not let her get him. Maybe she sent him a silent signal that said, "I'll leave you alone for now, bird. But watch yourself." :)

A couple of our friends came over later in the morning, for breakfast and a movie and Charlie got really loud. But when Michael and I came back this afternoon from meeting some other friends for lunch, he was very quiet and just peeped at us a bit. I called my parents to see if they had made it to their first overnight stop yet (Spokane, WA), and to give them an update on Charlie. I held the phone up to his cage and turned the speakerphone on. That bird definitely knows who his mom and dad are! It was the funniest thing to watch Charlie start tweeting and "talking" to their voices coming over the phone--he looked right at the phone the whole time. It was very sweet. Who knew a bird could have so much personality? :)

So Charlie will be our companion for the next 2 weeks, and as I write this, he is sitting in his cage next to me, tweeting for all he is worth. Mom and Dad said he really likes to be around people (just not too many at one time or he gets overwhelmed), so hopefully, Michael and I will be good company for him too.

I just have to keep an eye on one little gray kitty . . .